Astrobee

Today, astronauts on the ISS not only conduct science activities, but they also perform a variety of tasks required for ISS housekeeping and in-flight system maintenance. Astrobee can off-load tasks that are routine, repetitive or simple but long-duration work, such as conducting environment surveys or taking sensor readings. Flight controllers at MCC can use Astrobee as a mobile camera in order to improve ground situation awareness during crew activities without requiring crew time to reposition fixed cameras. As a research platform, Astrobee enables developers of space technologies to test in microgravity in a benign environment that can even include human intervention, if necessary.will save crew time by reducing the time needed to manually search for equipment. Benefits to Other Government Agencies: Experience and lessons learned from the development and operation of Astrobee will benefit other agencies that have requirements for free-flying space robots. For example, DARPA is currently formulating a "GEO Robotics" program that will develop a robot to perform satellite servicing in geostationary orbit. Such a robot could reuse subsystems, particularly software modules (operator interface, ground data system, etc) and software architecture, from Astrobee. Benefits to the Commercial Space Industry: This item does not benefit the commercial space industry. Benefits to the Nation: As a micro-gravity robotics research facility on ISS, Astrobee will enable students, academic researchers, and private industry to test new robotics technology in microgravity. For example, in 2015, NASA awarded several SBIR Phase grants to small businesses to develop lightweight robot manipulator arms for use in space. When complete, these arms could be tested with Astrobee. In addition, Astrobee will be fully capable of supporting education and public outreach activities, such as robotic competitions, in the same way that SPHERES has done so since 2006.